‘Traveling’ Trump supporter is detained outside El Paso immigrant center after ‘making threats and brandishing a knife’ – Cops discover loaded gun inside Thomas Bartram’s pick-up truck decorated with a picture of the president as Rambo, release him after he claims he’s ‘no threat’
Trump supporter, 21, is detained outside El Paso immigrant center after ‘making threats and brandishing a knife’
Thomas Bartram was taken into custody in El Paso Thursday after witnesses claimed he was making threatening comments outside an immigrant center
Witnesses say the avowed Trump supporter was also brandishing a knife as he sat inside his pick-up truck that was covered with stickers of Trump as rambo
Inspection of Bartram’s vehicle uncovered a loaded pistol and white powder
Responding officers were ‘confrontational’ with with witnesses and insisted that Bartram had not broken any laws, – witness said
Bartram who was briefly detained and interviewed was released, and he is headed another Pro-trump rally in Oregon that local officials have warned is expected to turn violent
His actions further heightened the fear factor in El Paso is still on edge following Saturday’s mass shooting in the city which left 22 people dead at a mall
Bartram claimed he was not a danger to anyone as he sat outside the immigrant center said, ‘People can interpret my political opinion outside what they are; that’s their right. But I’m definitely not a white supremacist’
“It seemed like the right thing to do, to come out and support Trump. He’s getting a lot of criticism,” said Bartram in an article featured in a Washington Examiner article a day earlier, along with a photo where he was making a sign associated with White Supremacists
Thomas Bartram was detained [photo], by police outside the Casa Carmelita community center in El Paso on Thursday evening. Witnesses say the Trump supporter parked his pickup truck outside the center and made threatening comments, brandishing a weapon
An armed Trump supporter has been detained outside an immigration center in El Paso, Texas, a day after the president made his controversial visit to the border town to console survivors and commiserate with families of victims of a mass shooting that left 22 people dead five days earlier.
Thomas Bartram, 21, was taken into custody outside the Casa Carmelita community center in El Paso on Thursday evening, after witnesses called police claiming he was making threatening comments and brandishing a knife.
At the time he was arrested, Bartram can be seen wearing blue gloves while speaking with police on the scene.
Cops subsequently searched his black pick-up truck, which was emblazoned with stickers promoting the far-right conspiracy theory website, InfoWars.
The vehicle also featured a large image showing President Trump carrying a machine gun while dressed as the fictional action hero, Rambo.
A subsequent police search of the truck yielded a legally-owned loaded pistol and a white powder, which was eventually determined to be a protein supplement.
The El Paso Police Department tweeted about the incident late Thursday night, saying: ‘The subject was detained, interviewed and released after it was determined that no criminal offense had been committed.’
Bartram had traveled to El Paso to show his support for President Trump in the wake of last Saturday’s mass shooting inside one of the city’s Walmart stores.
Trump has come under fire in recent days, with many claiming the mass shooter used anti-Hispanic rhetoric inspired by the President in a manifesto he published online just minutes before the massacre.
Bartram had been featured in a Washington Examiner articleWednesday.
The article included a photo of Bartram making a hand signal often used by white supremacists and standing alongside his truck, the back of which was covered with a banner of Trump dressed as Rambo and a bumper sticker of George Washington that reads “Me and my homies woulda been stacking bodies by now.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do, to come out and support Trump,” Bartram is quoted saying in the article.
In contradiction, speaking with NBC News on Friday, Bartram insisted he is not a white supremacist and does not harbor anti-Hispanic views.
‘People can interpret my political opinion outside what they are; that’s their right. But I’m definitely not a white supremacist,’ he stated.
Thomas Bartram’s black pick-up truck, emblazoned with outsized pro-Trump banners, is seen on the right
His truck was emblazoned with stickers promoting the far-right conspiracy theory website, InfoWars – The site connected to Alex Jones, a radio host and conspiracy theorist who has alleged the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax
“It seemed like the right thing to do, to come out and support Trump. He’s getting a lot of criticism,” says Thomas Bartram, 21, [photo making a sign associated with White Supremacists]. who had driven his truck, complete with banner of the president dressed as Rambo, from Houston to El Paso to make a point.
Bartram further claimed he was not a danger to anyone as he sat outside the immigrant center, and said he was wearing blue gloves because he ‘was eating prickly pears’.
Meanwhile, one of the female worker inside the Casa Carmelita community center said patrons were ‘terrified’ by the incident.
She further claimed to be ‘frustrated’ by police response to the incident.
The woman claimed cops were ‘confrontational’ with with witnesses and insisted that Bartram had not broken any laws.
According to NBC, Bartram has left El Paso and is now bound for another pro-Trump rally in Oregon.
Bartram’s truck was parked outside the Casa Carmelita community center – a space that provides services to immigrants
Members of the community members posted photos they had taken earlier in the day of Bartram attending vigils for the victims of the massacre, which targeted Hispanic immigrants, according to a racist screed allegedly written by the gunman.
Bartram said he often went to Trump rallies, but said he tried to be respectful of the high tensions in El Paso following the shootings, though he said he could not rule out the possibility that the massacre had been a “false flag” perpetrated by the government.
He acknowledged he was legally carrying a pistol but denied waving it around.
‘I was wearing gloves and carrying a knife because, “I was eating prickly pears,”’ Bartram claimed.
The white powder was a protein supplement Bartram said he takes along with other Alex Jones’ branded nutritional supplements.
Bartram is no longer in El Paso but on his way to Portland, Oregon, to attend a protest that local officials have warned is expected to turn violent.
Bartram is an active member of the InfoWars community forum, commenting under his own name and linked to a YouTube account where he posted two videos. One video shows him walking around with a flag in support of “open carry” laws and the other is of an unknown man appearing at a vigil for a woman murdered in May.
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